Rheumatoid arthritis (“RA”) is an autoimmune disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the joints leading to progressive cartilage destruction and bone erosion. RA patients experience joint pain, stiffness, and swelling. More advanced RA causes the joint to lose its shape, alignment, and movement. RA has been treated for many years with a variety of medicines such as steroids and disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Some of these drugs are administered through injections or infusions. However, it is difficult for RA patients with compromised joint strength and structure to manipulate available syringes to perform a self injection, particularly for viscous biologics and other drugs. Currently, some drugs are injected using conventional hypodermic syringes. These conventional syringes are generally small, which makes holding or manipulating the syringe more difficult. These syringes also do not provide RA patients with satisfactory handling and gripping structures.
In addition, typical syringes are difficult for some patients to de-cap and re-cap. For example, most needles come with a needle tip cover that shields the needle prior to use, but the cover requires RA patients to force their fingers to close in around the needle tip cover to manipulate the cover. Because these needle tip covers have small openings, patients frequently accidentally stab themselves when they try to shield the needle after use.
More effective syringe systems are needed to address these and other problems posed by currently available syringe systems. There is a need for a syringe system that allows the patient to more easily administer a viscous drug, yet still provide increased safety as well as increased control. There is also a need for syringe systems that provides more ergonomic gripping compatibility for RA patients.